Each week, commenter Rocket writes about the NHL because we so frequently forget to do so. Rocket? --------

I finally get it. My only regret is that I didn't figure it out much, much earlier.

A number of years ago I spent two months in the summer in Portland, Ore. It was the only place where I could get some custom parts for my anti-Stu machine. Like just about everybody else who spends some time (particularly in the summer) in the Pacific Northwest I fell in love with it. I felt that I could see myself living in that part of the world for the rest of my life and it didn't hurt that the soundtrack for my late childhood/early adulthood emerged in that Portland-Seattle-Vancouver corridor. The PNW also seemed like a surprisingly good area of the world for sports. The Mariners' home park is as gorgeous as that person in high school that you secretly loved but was always too afraid to talk to, the Trailblazers and Sonics (R.I.P.) had the kind of fan bases that made you feel like you were part of an underground club, and the Canucks were always sneakily good and had the kind of jerseys that were destined to appeal to the inner hipster in all of us. But a funny thing happened by the end of those two months. The off-kilter goofiness that seemed as charming as the manic pixie dream girl of the movies slowly morphed into a scary goofiness that was more akin to the type of mental illness that a manic pixie dream girl would have in real life. There was a weird edge to the place; a type of potentially explosive hostility that was only barely contained and concealed by the copious herbal supplements that the city enjoyed. By the end of my time in the PNW I had come to one irrefutable conclusion: Portland (and Seattle and Vancouver) is what happens when you give just a few too many white people just a little too much hippie lettuce.

(Above: typical PNW resident) Still, even after that summer (and the hassle of shipping the parts for that anti-Stu machine back to Minnesota, which is a story unto itself) the PNW continued to hold a lot of appeal. Every now and then I would daydream about all of the great things Portland and/or Seattle and/or Vancouver had to offer, while somehow either explaining away or never remembering the truly odd aspects of it all. My love of that region of the world even prevented me from engendering any real hate for the only team the Wild can even remotely consider a rival: the Vancouver Canucks. The hard-fought 2003 playoff series provided the likeliest of Vancouver playoff villains in Todd Bertuzzi and the also the likeliest of Wild playoff heroes in Dan Cloutier. But the lack of additional meaningful games between the two franchises, the different trajectories of the two franchises, and the fact that Vancouver seemed like such a cool place to live meant that I just couldn't hate the Canucks. This is why I was so surprised after last year's Stanley Cup finals. The utterly pointless riots – which were destined to occur even if the Canucks had won – seemed out of character with the laid back, good time, relaxed, just-plain-cool stereotype I was still carrying around about the PNW. I mean, city ordinances make it illegal for the women to wear pants in the streets! Yet, the aftermath of Game 7 inadvertently opened a window to the true PNW, the one that is always lurking behind the emerald green curtain. This became more evident to me when I watched the Artist Formerly Known As Versus' documentary on the '72 Summit Series (which, by the way, is a must-see for any hockey fan). The Canadians' slow start reached its nadir in the fourth game in Canada, which was played in Vancouver. According to the documentary, the home crowd was not just disappointed, but brutal and churlish and perhaps even on the verge of behaving stupidly. The distasteful behavior of the Vancouver fans prompted what is legitimately considered (as far as anything Canadian can be considered legitimate) one of the most important public statements in the history of Canada. It is now clear that Portland's (and Seattle's and Vancouver's) well-deserved reputation for indulging in a specific type of cigarette was less of a recreational activity and more of a case of self-medication. There is a rage in the PNW, one that constantly lurks behind a thick cloud of bluish smoke and I want no part of it. I am now free of your evil, hipster spell, PNW -- and your handlebar moustache, your pre-faded "I hate Lana Del Ray" tee-shirt, and the Vancouver Canucks.